The following is an excerpt from a column by the University of Illinois Springfield Director of Graduate Public Service Internship Program Sherrie Elzinga. This column appeared in The State Journal-Register on June 20, 2021. 

June graduation celebrations always include the opportunity to congratulate recent college graduates on their undergraduate degrees and pose the inevitable questions about future employment. 

The Illinois Innocence Project (IIP) at the University of Illinois Springfield is pleased to announce its client Jennifer McMullan has been released after more than 19 years of wrongful imprisonment for a murder she did not commit. At a court hearing on Wednesday, June 16,at the McHenry County Courthouse, the State vacated McMullan’s murder conviction and sentence, and presented a plea agreement that would release McMullan that day with her sentence considered “time served.”

When Sangamon Auditorium first opened its doors on Feb. 21, 1981, with Hal Holbrook’s performance of “Mark Twain Tonight,” it became a valuable arts resource for the surrounding area.

Hometown: Gabon, Central AfricaMajor: Public AdministrationFuture Plans: Work as a government advisor and earn a master’s degree

When John Hanlon started his career as a lawyer in 1983, he knew of only one case where an innocent person had been cleared of a crime: Sam Shepphard, the Ohio physician exonerated in 1966 of killing his wife.